The Porn Deal
by loginandgetresults
Summary: It gets terribly boring being stuck in a house after a long time. Any type of distraction is welcome, and maybe productive in some cases. Chad, Tate, and Violet so far. Continuing as I work on it. Drugs and sex and language, oh my!
1. Chapter 1

He was slumped along the leather sofa in the office, one arm extended over the end and his head dropped down on that. Oh, it was so nice to have another pot smoker in the house again. It was entertaining to watch the guy try and find new places to hide it, getting frantic at wondering how someone kept finding it and taking it. Stupid. Didn't he know some…_things_ were watching that he couldn't see? You ought to be careful, though. Idiots like the twins took it all, not just a bud or two. Guy might start thinking that he was developing some paranoia reaction to weed and quit smoking it. Then he'd have to kill those little assholes for a couple weeks.

You had to move fast with things like pot and pills and booze in this house. Always someone lurking, trying to pilfer it. He was pretty crafty, having spent a lot of time thinking about this non-corporeal existence and what it meant for him. Experimented. Even got down the sidewalk a ways once before the place sucked him back up like tornado.

Everybody stole the good stuff. Damn it.

It was so boring without the intoxicants, DVD's, computers. So. Fucking. Boring.

The door to the office banged open and Chad stumbled in, a wine bottle in one hand and a DVD case in the other.

"Don't come in here and harsh my buzz," he said, not caring if he'd just leave him alone. He was too high to give a real shit about it anyway.

"Fuck you," Chad replied, struggling to get drunken fingers to open the clamshell case. Tate finally sighed.

"Spaz. Give it here." He sat up and stretched his arm out, wiggling long fingers.

"Fuck you," he said again, ignoring the hand.

"Wow, what a repertoire of insults," he replied, leaning back over the sofa arm again. He watched the tussle with the DVD case through his long bangs.

"Know what you remind me of?" he sang to Chad.

"Don't care, asshole," was the retort.

"You remind me of a seagull trying to open an oyster or something. Or like an otter." He blinked slowly, an eternity passing in his head from the THC infection. "Maybe you ought to lie on your back and I'll get you a rock from outside. You can bang it open."

He shot him a dark eyed stare. "Like I'd trust you with lying down _or_ a rock in your hand."

Tate flopped a little, acknowledging. "Good call." The case finally burst open and the DVD flew out. He clapped weakly. "Bravo. What is it?"

Chad didn't respond, just fed the disc into the player and turned on the television. Tate shrugged.

"So what. Anything different is okay." He folded the arm under his head and watched as the screen flickered and the video loaded up. A few credits with dubious production value graphics showed up and then the cheesy music started. It stirred a memory in his mind.

Hey!" he said, sitting up. "Porno!" Chad, doing his best to disregard his murderer, fell onto the sofa with a 'woof'.

Silence for a few moments. Eyes watching the screen.

"Aw, it's straight," lamented Chad, forgetting to be haughty and letting the frustration show through his voice.

"Hell yes!" Tate cheered, folding his legs underneath him. "Where did this come from?"

"I'm not telling you. The guy has a shitload of it. I found it and it's mine." Tate leveled bleary red eyes on his victim.

"If he's straight, then all his porno will be straight, so what do you want it for?"

"It's the principle. I found it. It's mine." He repeated the previous declaration with a satisfied little moo at the end. Tate snorted.

"Whatever, dude." They watched a while and sure enough, it was straight porno. Chad was getting disgusted at his misfortune and took a long pull from the bottle. Some ran down his chin and he cursed.

"Being drunk is sloppy," Tate observed. "Sloppy sloppy sloppy." He liked the way the word sounded and how it felt to say it and it reminded him of others things.

"You're high as hell," Chad said dryly.

"You're drunk as shit. And we're both dead, so, even." He looked back at the screen. "Look at that! Can't you just appreciate the cinematography?" That word was hard to say as stoned as he was, and it came out sounding all hyphenated. "Can't you appreciate the art?"

So, okay. They both laughed then.

She walked in, and Tate's breath stopped.

"What fresh hell is this?" she demanded, and he smiled at her Dorothy Parker reference.

"Mr. Specialness found a porno stash and he's not telling where. He wants it allll to himself." He was daring himself to speak, but being this high kind of interfered with his judgment.

"Huh," she huffed, plopping down between them. "What is it?"

"Oh," Chad said sarcastically, "It's straight up het fucking…in various ways. And orifices."

She snickered and his heart flopped, flopped.

"He knows where some gay porno is," she volunteered. Tate twisted uncomfortably.

Chad sat up, narrowing his eyes at him. "Where?"

A thought crept into his head. "Somewhere…" he replied, mysterious. A hint of a smile on her face that meant more than a thousand smiles from anyone else.

"Don't be a fucking little petulant child," Chad sneered. He sneered back.

"What's the difference? 'It's mine, I found it!"' he mocked.

They glared at each other across her. It was amusing.

"Tell you what," Chad finally broke the standoff. "You bring out one of…yours, and I'll bring out one of mine. One at a time. So they'll last."

He lifted his chin arrogantly. "How can I trust you?"

"You _are_ a smug little bitch."

Tate pretended to be busy brushing lint from his sweater.

"I'll let you kill me if I don't."

"That's not appealing at all. I could do that any day of the week."

Chad jerked, annoyed. Then a slow realization came across his face and he stared intently at Tate, and then cast his eyes at her. She was watching the screen, having forgotten their little impasse.

What? Tate mouthed.

Once again, he turned his eyes to look at Violet, then back at Tate. Oh! His eyebrows went up. He knew they pal-ed around. Talked and drank and laughed. Did he really mean…?

Talk to her? He mouthed back.

Chad nodded vigorously.

"Deal," he replied, reaching across to shake Chad's hand and touching for the first time since he'd killed him.


	2. Chapter 2

Tate scoured the house for the next four days, crawling in places so dank and filthy he knew Chad would never have ventured there, searching for the straight guy's DVD's. He found plenty of shit around the other TV. Friends season one. Sex and the City, which turned out to just piss him off. The Fast and the Furious. Fuck that shit, where's the porno? At last he found a steel Army trunk in the back of the guy's closet, locked and padlocked. He dragged it out into the room with some difficulty and studied it. A built in lock and a hanging lock. Damn it. He went to gather supplies and returned with a knife and various bits of wire and metal, jamming them unsuccessfully into the locks over and over until he was swearing and roasting hot from the effort and stress.

"Nyahhh!" Chad said, scaring the shit out of him. "Can't get in there."

"I can. I'll blow the fucking thing up if I have to!" Tate wiped the sweat from his forehead. Frantic.

"Then you'll destroy everything in it…along with your little Wednesday afternoon session with the object of your desire…"

Tate sat back into a squat, thought, and banged his fist on the steel chest. "The key is somewhere…"

"I have the key," Chad swirled his wine in the glass, unconcerned. Tate stood to his full height and assumed his ass-kicking, fire-setting face.

"Oh, I can get the key from you," he growled.

Chad barked a curt little laugh and sat the wine glass down on the dresser to light a smoke. "Boy, I'll keep that key in a place you'll never want to go looking for it. Not unless you can find another poker."

"FUCK YOU!" He roared. Chad smiled.

"Actually, that's the best offer I've had in a long, long time. Come on, she'll hear you and get pissed off all over again." He scooped up the glass and breezed out.

"Damn. I wish I didn't need these," Chad snapped as he slipped a pair of black glasses from his shirt pocket onto his face. Violet snickered but Tate brayed, stoned out of his mind.

"Old man, got to put on his glasses to see the porno! Well," he affected the voice of an elderly man, " gotta watch my fistin' movie, better get my specs!"

She laughed out loud. Thank you, Chad, he silent prayed to the Decorating God that was Chad. All hail Chad; hanger of drapes, sponge painter of walls.

"So, this week it's 'your' porn, right?" She looked from Chad to Tate, who had lost his good mood suddenly.

"That's right, doll. Fork it over." Chad arched a brow expectantly. Tate groaned as he pulled the DVD box from the small of his back after smuggling in tucked into the waist of his jeans.

"Ooo," Chad said, wiping the mist from the case, "looks like this is hot." A smirk.

"It made my back sweat," he complained gruffly.

"Well you could have just walked in with it in your hand like anyone else," Violet chirped, and then she looked droll. "Oh, but we're not talking about anyone else, are we?"

Ow.

"Bitchy. Bitchy!" Chad waved a finger and eyed the case. "You little bastard. This is one of our old ones!"

Tate shrugged. "I didn't promise farm fresh."

"Okay, Damien, those were mine to begin with. Come up off them."

Tate turned his head languorously to look over. "No," he said, only drew it out until it sounded like 'neeeewwwwwwwooooo." He snatched Chad and Violet's cigarettes from the coffee table and had one lit before they could catch him.

"You son of a bitch," Chad muttered as Tate nodded in agreement.

"Now THAT, I am."

Chad fumed and Violet watched with big eyes. Wednesday afternoon soap opera. Today's episode: Straight murderer and gay victim battle over homo porn!

Tate was totally relaxed, secure in his position. "You gonna keep your deal or what?"

Chad jumped up from the couch and put the DVD in the player. "Fucker," he hissed.

"Won't be any "fuck-hers" in this one, just 'fuck-him'!" Violet cracked to Chad, and they laughed like hyenas while Tate made a silent "blah" face beside them.

"Damn! You're soused," Chad said, searching for the bottle. "Where is it?"

"Inside me," she replied. Tate shifted and stared at the sun filtering through the wooden blinds. God damn it.

"You _bitch_!" Tate started to say something to Chad but then they both laughed. Oh. "Now I have to go all the way back to the kitchen and plunder through that Mogen David museum of crap they have."

"I'll go," she said, standing. "I'm the one who drank it all."

"I don't know if I trust you. I mean, look how you dress. How's your taste?"

Like clover honey, Tate thought, staring longingly up at her back.

"Shut up!" she giggled, slapping at him. With a cursory glance at Tate, she stepped over his feet nimbly and left the room. Tate sat up like he was spring loaded and made his head swim a little.

"Well?" he asked, propping that spinning head on his arm, which looked and felt as awkward as it sounded but helped. "Did you talk to her yet?"

"I fucking told you if you asked me one more time…" Chad paused the DVD.

"Shhh…fuck!" He glanced at the door. "She'll hear you, you're so fucking loud!"

"You're just that high, Blondie. But yes, I did. I said I would, didn't I? _I_, for one, did not spend the week skulking around and looking for _a personal stash_ that someone who will remain nameless stole and hid from its owner. _I_ am trustworthy."

"You lying ass! Why didn't you tell me?" he fumed, whispering.

"I'm not in this for you, Goldie locks, I'm in it for me. Besides, give a guy a little credit. What kind of an idiot would I be if I couldn't leave you turning slowly over the spit for a few more days, or hours, or even minutes?" Chad mused a moment, softening. "And maybe for her. She's a doll, I see why you're all about her. And she at least ought to be happy. Unfortunately, that makes you happy too. But yeah, mostly me."

Murderous rage. _Murderous_. "You…fucking…ass…" Tate couldn't think of anything bad enough to call him, and almost forgot the reason he was even talking to him.

"Don't'cha wanna know what she said?" Right on cue. Damn, he had timing. Should have been a standup.

Tate tried to assembly a calm state. "Yes."

"She said, "Well," Chad rolled his eyes heavenward. "I don't know. I don't know if I want to sit there all that time, with…" he lowered his stare to Tate. Who blanched.

"What did you ask her?"

"Did she want to be a part of the Wednesday Afternoon Porno Screening Guild. And she was all for it…until she realized someone would be here. Someone who had the other half of the deal."

Fuck. Shit. Fuck. Tate ran his hands through his already impossibly messy hair.

"But hey, she's here, isn't she? Hasn't pulled out a dagger or a chainsaw yet. Hasn't said "CROATOAN." He croaked the word and then burst into laughter. "Ah, kids!"

"Has she tried that?" Tate said glumly.

"Naw. I did. After it all happened I wondered if that crazy bitch your crazy bitch Mamma brought over here was for real." He lit a cigarette. "She ain't."

"I'm afraid to ask who," Tate muttered.

"Oh, silly child, you _know_ it was _you_!" The smoke blew out into the room.

"What did you burn of mine?"

"Your dump truck," he said winsomely. Tate flared up again.

"No I didn't. Jesus, even I'm not that heartless," he smacked Tate's knee. "I burned your combats. You know, your Columbine outfit shoes? Cops didn't take those."

"Oh. Well. I guess I ought to say thanks but it seems kind of inappropriate, seeing how you were attempting to send me to Hell."

"Oh, honey, _this_ is Hell." He flicked ash into an empty glass. "Don't you worry."

"Is that all she said?" Tate was desperate. As usual.

"That's all _she_ said. Now here's what _I_ said. I told her I knew you really love her, not just puppy dog bullshit. Told her you had become…tolerable. You're funny, smart. A lot more easy to endure than that wicked bitch of the east her dad managed to get stuck here. I told her…_I like you_…" he rolled his eyes up again.

Well holy shit. "You did not."

"I did. Look, I've been thinking about it this way: the way Pat was playing driver to every weirdo bottom that put an ad in the LA Weekly someone was bound to show up here and kill us both. Might as well have been a dead guy." He blew smoke artfully above his head. "At least you had a legitimate axe to grind."

Tate just gaped.

"Listen, it's not like I'm going to adopt you or anything. But here this is, and I might as well make the most of it. Mostly," he leaned forward and tapped Tate's nose with his finger, "I love to fuck with your head."

"Assh…" he started to say, but Chad shushed him.

"Hush, here she comes!"

Violet swayed in with a bottle of wine, sparking in the filtered sun from the refrigerator's condensation.

"Ah yes, fair one; she bring-eth the wine-eth!"

Tate tucked his legs as close to the sofa as he could so she would not have to step over them. She ignored him and sat down.

"Screw top! Classy!" Chad peeled off the paper and flipped it off his fingers onto the coffee table. "Hit play, Violet."

Dutifully she did as Chad poured both glasses vulgarly full. "Sorry, Tater," he said. "I used your glass as an ashtray." Tate snatched the bottle away and turned it up. God, he had cottonmouth.

"We here at the Murder House certainly do keep up with the most impeccable of manners and the height of discrimination," Chad drawled, wiping the bottle mouth on a cushion.

"What are you gonna get? You're already dead," Tate burped.

"It's just the idea. Oh, look, here we go, I remember this one! They always start with the 'Oh, you're so tense after your long HARD day as a financial success of a stud of a man, let me massage your shoulders!'" Chad kissed the air before him. Violet stared at the screen. Tate sighed.

Silence.

Silence, except for the sounds from the television.

"Oh, OOOOOO!" Tate wailed, covering his eyes, "No no no no no!" He almost sang the denials, up one note in pitch, down one.

"Whaaaaah!" Violet shrieked, both her and Chad laughing.

"Watch!" he said to Violet, indicating at the screen with his wine glass. "You can pick up tips on how to do a blowjob."

"Who am I gonna blow?" she snorted.

At least no one else was in line for that job, Tate thought. Whoo.

Time passed. Tate filched another cigarette and they sat in a cloud of smoke, watching. The sun made lovely beams in the haze; dust motes dancing in a way that made Tate abruptly remember something from his childhood: Staring out the window at his Dad parking a new car in the driveway for his mom on Christmas Eve…the yellow sun playing havoc with the dust the car stirred up on the drive…

"Earth to asshole," Chad broke into the way-back of his head. "Look."

The soggy brown eyes dragged back to the television. Two guys were kissing, really going at it. Tate spewed smoke.

"Now, that…right there. Man, that's almost worse than the other stuff. How? How can you?" He sat up to look at Chad. "I mean, it's just like you! How can you kiss a face just like you?"

"You jerk off?" Chad asked.

"Yeah."

"There you are." Chad snuggled back into the couch.

"Bullshit." Tate flopped back, his hair mercifully dropping over his eyes so he could not see as clearly.

But before long….

He could see her watching him out of the corner of her eyes; looking at him. His heart thumped. What? _What? It's been a long time now. She's still looking? Yeah yeah yeah, I know my sense of time's fucked up…but she's still looking! Didn't she say once that she thought gay porn was hot? Yes! She did!_

Triumph surged through him.

"Oh, GOD that _has_ to hurt!" Violet shrieked, hand over her mouth.

"It's all what you get used to, baby," Chad patted her knee comfortingly. "Maybe you'll find out some day."

Tate's eyebrows rose unconsciously.

"Fuck that!" she laughed.

"Yeah, well, we do. He is," Chad replied cooly.

More time.

"No, no, he's gonna pull it out and now that dude is gonna put it in his mouth, oh for love of GOD!" Tate groaned.

"Don't knock it 'til you try it, Night Stalker," Chad cooed.

Moans issued from the surround sound. Too much. Surprised Moira or Hayden hadn't come to see the deal. Household Whores at your service.

"Here we go! Money shot!" Chad cried in glee. Tate peered at the screen through his bangs and fingers.

"Aw, dude! No!"

Violet even shrank back a little. Graphic.

"Now he's gonna kiss him again with all that…shit in his mouth?" Tate faked a gagging sound to punctuate his disgust.

Chad sat up. "Well, you straight guys will get down on that cookie and lick away like it's Dairy Queen and then expect a girl to kiss you!"

"Yeah!" Violet cheered. They both looked at her, silent; Chad grinning a little and Tate swallowing hard.

"Tee Em Eye, Vi!" Chad winked. Tate stared intently out the window, trying to disguise the rapid rising and falling of breath in his chest. Violet downed the last of her umpteenth glass of cheap wine and stood.

"Aw, party pooper, where you going?" Chad whined.

"I gotta throw up…I'm too drunk on that cheapo sweet shit." She vanished out the door.

"Heat, kitchen," Chad said, shooting a glance at Tate.

He just stared at the door. Wondering.


	3. Chapter 3

The Porn Deal 3

"I have some information for you, Gloomy Gus," Chad said, dawdling out onto the portico in the rear of the house. Tate sat on the wall, smoking another stolen cigarette. Chad snatched them up, pissed off. "If you don't quit stealing my cigarettes, I'm going to steal your pot and then what will you do?"

"Too late, smartass. You did."

"I never did. Why? Did the weed you stole get stolen?"

"Not all of it. But there was some gone."

"Well it wasn't me. I quit it in the 80's when that drag queen Nancy Reagan started all the DARE shit and made it so _persona non grata_."

"Someone did. Hey! What information? Did you talk to her?" A slight lunge of his body.

"Down boy. Yes, I did. Had breakfast with her, actually, while you were out there under that tacky-assed gazebo sawing logs. Honestly, didn't you have your adenoids out when you were alive? Because if you didn't, Jesus Christ you should have."

Tate fairly writhed with frustration. "Fucking…! What?"

He smiled sarcastically. "It brings me great joy to see you dangling in the spider web."

Tate whined, reduced to begging.

"Oh, all right. I got her to admit she misses you."

Tate's eyes lit up like a five-year olds' Christmas. "Really?"

"Yes, but I miss my dog, too, and you don't see me going to West Hollywood to dig the damn thing up on Halloween, do you? Anyway, she got a little misty." Chad laid his hand on his neck. "It was kind of touching."

"She got…teary?" A strangled whisper.

"You could say that." Chad held up this week's DVD. "You ready? Actually, are you high? I figured that was how we do this thing. Because I'm drunk."

"No, actually I'm not. I'm going in straight this time. Ha! Pun!" He pointed at Chad. He was returned with a sneer and he slid off the wall, following him inside.

When they arrived in the office Violet was already perched primly on the sofa. She had on leggings and a tank top covered by a loosely knit, large necked sweater that fell off of her shoulders. Tate just stared. Her small feet were bare and blue-nailed, toes curled around the edge of the coffee table. She looked back, unflinching.

"Shit," Tate finally muttered, sitting down.

"Hello, Angel-ness. Welcome to the screening. We are serving up a big helping of beefy males and tattooed, fake-tanned-and - titted women today called…" Chad slid his glasses from the top of his head and surveyed the box. "Come to Me. Oh, how original. For your consideration, academy." He slid the disc in and came to sit beside Violet. "Where's your bottle?"

"Don't need it," she said carefully. Tate looked her over, suspicious.

"Oh really? You find something else to play with?"

"Yup," she glanced surreptitiously at Tate.

"You stole my bud?" He breathed.

"I partook of a little of your stolen bud. So, yes, I did. I stole stolen bud. Doot doot doot."

Tate's eyebrows went up. She always got a lot more verbose when she was high. And silly.

"Can you pause it a minute? I really have a dry mouth…" she wandered off to the kitchen, Tate watching her every move. When she disappeared Chad poked him.

"How much did she steal?"

"A pinch. But she's a lightweight." He made a face of doubt. "Never could hang with me."

"Yes, Dr. Feelgood, you are the drug master. But aren't you sorry you didn't catch a buzz now?"

"No way! I'd rather not be encumbered at this moment." Violet returned with two beers.

"I brought one for you," she said, sitting it carefully before Tate on the coffee table. "I thought if you're as high as I am, you'd be cotton mouthed too."

Chad's eyes bulged at him. FAKE IT.

"Oh. Oh! You're right, I am." He shrugged at Chad helplessly before she flumped down in between the two of them, but decidedly closer to Tate's side this time.

Chad's eyes bored holes in him. Even so, he thought, Tate was kind of a little underdog like he had been at that age. Gay in Pasadena in the 80's. He always rooted for the loser.

Tate held his ground, not shrinking away. Good. Let her put the moves on. Chad hit the play button and the TV flashed from screen saver to picture.

"Hoo," Chad clucked, "Are they actually going to try and have some sort of story here? Lady Chatterley's Lover, all soft focus and bad orchestra music from Italy?"

"SHHH!" Violet spat violently.

"Damn!" Tate mumbled.

"You too. I picked this one out."

Tate leaned out so Chad could see him. NO FAIR, he mouthed.

DEAL WITH IT.

SUCK MY DICK.

WHEN?

Tate flopped back.

Everyone was quiet for a while because Violet sat on the edge of the cushions and would slap your hand if you interrupted. Tate sighed and squirmed and rearranged how he was sitting a thousand times, drawing her irritation. Chad leaned back behind her, hissing at Tate to get his attention. SHE'S PISSY WHEN SHE'S STONED.

DON'T SAY THAT SHIT ABOUT HER.

WELL IT'S TRUE. He disappeared behind his wine glass.

"I have this new cologne," the guy on screen said to a trashy dressed girl in a bar. "It's called "Come to Me. Would you smell it, and see if it smells like come to you?" His brow rounded devilishly.

The girl smiled. "I'd have to taste it."

Chad and Tate fell about the sofa, laughing. Violet was quiet and confused.

"What's so funny? I don't get it."

"Honey!" Chad clasped her arm. "Seriously?"

"No," she paused the movie, disconcerted. Tate knew that stage. The _I kind of feel alone and sad and I wanna cry _stage of a buzz that sometimes slipped in under the door.

"Sweetie, he asked this floozy if she thought his cologne smelled like COME to her and she said she'd have to TASTE it. Get it?"

Her brow remained wrinkled and Tate felt a shot of pity.

"It's okay, Vi. Just start it again, it'll make sense in a little while." He almost patted her hand but thought that might be too much.

She turned her amber eyes to him and made him melt. "You see this already?"

"Yeah," he lied. "Once." That seemed to placate her and she smiled, sending butterflies straight to the stomach. First time in…years. She drew her knees up onto the sofa and pushed play, putting her hands on her knees. Dangerously close to that rip in the knee of his Levis. After a scene or two, she relaxed her fingers and let them rest against his bare skin. It was too much, after all this time. He had to sit forward to hide a certain disobedient body part that was ignoring his inward shouts to stay put.

Chad took note and smirked like a devil. The movie droned on, play-violent sex, light bondage, a lesbian scene that piqued Tate's interest a little, but not much. He could not get over the fact she was actually touching him. Finally it ended with an epic orgy and went off.

"Well, five out of ten," Chad said, stretching. "It had a little bit of a story line. Kind of funny. What say you, flower girl?"

"Ten," she sighed. "It was kind of romantic."

"Oh yes. Two chicks in a hot tub taking off bikinis made out of dental floss…that's some real William Cullen Bryant-caliber shit right there. What about the golden boy?"

"Fair," he whispered. "Whatever."

"Till' next week, lieblings," Chad said standing and taking the DVD out of the player. "You two okay to be left alone? No bloodshed or gunplay going to happen if I leave."

Violet shook her head dully. Tate said nothing. Chad slumped away, chanting "Yes, the danger must be growing / 'Cause the rowers keep on rowing / And they're certainly not showing / Any signs that they are slowing!"

They were alone, sunlight glittering on the hardwood floors.

"Are you still high?" Violet ventured.

"I never was," he replied, staring into space before them.

"But you said…"

"I lied. I'm sorry. I didn't want you to feel paranoid, being the only one."

She exhaled slowly. "That was…thoughtful."

He didn't reply. To say thanks was snooty, self-satisfying. To deny it was insulting.

"So, I told Chad," she said after a long while, "That I miss you."

Heart beating in his ears. "You did?"

"Yes."

Time was moving immeasurably slow, dragging even for the un-stoned, like a Moby song.

"Is it true?" Oh please, oh please….

She pulled silvery hairs on his knee between her fore and middle finger, staring down at it. "Yes."

"I miss you too," he said, almost inaudible.

Her hand rounded over his bare knee. "I know." With that, she stood up to leave him gawping after her with a fluttering heart and hyperventilation.


	4. Chapter 4

THE PORN DEAL 4

Author's note: Thanks for following and reviewing and being generally awesome. I - like many here I suspect- am a writer of my own fiction and would love to do it for a living. People who write not because they want to but _have_ to. This is who I have been for about 36 years now. I teach literature and see writers among my students, and I compel them to continue to work on their craft. Many have never been told they were good, and I am rewarded when their eyes light and their lips stretch in a smile. My younger fellow writers as I once again suspect most of you are, don't stop. Don't stop until you get that reward.

4TPDTPDTPDTPD4

He was cross-legged in a bay window, the sun shining through his hair and making it an outrageous halo when she went to the office and slumped onto the sofa. He heard her footfalls from carpet to hardwood to carpet, down the stairs and the pattern repeating itself again. Since last week he had agonized every moment, playing the scene over and over trying desperately to recall each nuance of her voice. He had purposely kept himself away from Chad, terrified of what he might say.

It had been miserable.

But now the door to the room was swinging open and here Chad was, strolling in as only he could. Casual yet smirking. Something was up. It was "his" pick and he probably was so self-satisfied that he wanted a little gloat before they got started. Tate didn't even look up.

"I've got it," he said dully, holding up the box. "I'm keeping my end."

"That's not why I'm here," Chad replied, blowing smoke. "I have other motives."

"Lovely," Tate muttered, "I'm so excited. Did you discover a new form of mental torture?"

Chad sniffed. "If you're gonna be a smart ass I just won't tell you." He got three steps away before the hook set and Tate said "What?"

Oh thank God. Regardless of what, Chad loved to repeat a good story. "Do you think I didn't keep my end of the deal and talk to her this week?"

Okay. That had his full attention. No more snotty teenage pretense now. "You did?"

"Yes. Quite a few times, actually."

Breathing = stopped.

"So…?"

Chad sighed and sat down across from him on the window seat cushion. "She's not happy. I mean, we both knew that, but I've been digging and pressing at her and she finally came across and told me the reason she wasn't happy was you."

Tate's face fell. "Well no shit, Sherlock."

"There you go, jumping to conclusions again. Tell me, in your illustrious track career were you by chance in the hurdles? Just shut up and listen. It's not all over what you've done, it's where you've been."

Tate blinked, confused. "I've been right here, where the hell else could I be?"

"An accurate portrayal of hell. But where you've been is not with her."

Blank stare.

"Don't you get it, kid? She's sad because you're not with her!"

He shook his head. "You're messing with me."

"Listen. I've been in her place, although the revelations my loved one had for me were not quite so…revolting, let's say, but at the time he could not have done anything worse to me. To my heart and soul." A ribbon of cigarette smoke rose from his still hand. "And after a long time, that battle between heart and head becomes more and more mixed up and finally you get to a point where you say 'well, I'm still not happy and it's such and so time…why am I still fighting it?' And you give into the side with the most soldiers left."

"And who is that?" Tate breathed.

"Hearts trump, kid. You've played enough cards to know that."

Tate jumped to his feet, no longer able to sit. "If you're fucking with me I will so kill you all over again."

Chad snorted. "If I was gonna fuck you it wouldn't be like this. Look. Take the chance I haven't got with Pat. I don't think he loves me anymore. Not even before you took us out." He stared out the window at the trees, the people in cars, the birds. All alive, all outside. He turned his head back to the turbulent mass of nerves at his side. "Go on. Go get your happy fucking ending. Even if I wasn't dead, I wouldn't have my own."

Converse Chucks thudding across to the door, but stopping with a squeak.

"Hey," Tate called back. Chad looked.

"I'm sorry. Really. I thought you guys would be together forever. I was stupid."

"I know you are, and I know you did. But you thought with a romantic mind. Not a practical one. Now go."


	5. Chapter 5

**Author's note to her lovely readers: Well, I switched up on you. First person POV's. I've been writing in it lately and it just flowed this way. Do you want me to leave it at five or go on one more? I kina feel extending would just be soft core porn but hey…I'm down with that, too. Probably would piss me off it I was reading it without a money shot! :D**

**TATES POV**

Well, there's news, and then THERE'S NEWS!

I am writing all of this down and fuck Strunk and White; I just don't want to forget anything. Style be damned.

News part: Some company rented this place for a St. Patrick's Day party. Can you believe it? Chad said that he saw them coming through, saying it looked like a castle, oh, oh! Anyway, cleaners and decorators came in and I bet he had a massive stiffy. God knows I was suffering because she was getting warmer and closer all the time. Okay, NEWS part: Last week we met on the stairs as I was going up to see Beau and she was running down to play with the little girls. I just reached out to touch her hand as she hurried by and she pushed me up against the wall and kissed me and gave me a good grope. I was just standing there with my mouth open, catching flies if you will, and she said "Remember my place for me."

Remember my place for me. What the fuck? I almost yelled that down to her after it sunk in. I had to go sit on the toilet seat in the bathroom because it was closest and I felt tottery. My PLACE for ME? Sorry about all the capitalization. But I mean, WHAT the FUCK?

~One week later, day of the party~

We almost did it!

Shit!

There were people everywhere all night working to get this lame ass party ready and who cares, she sure as hell didn't. I was fucking with this guy; every time he'd hang this streamer I knocked down the opposite side. Back and forth, back and forth. His little face was getting red. Chad was laughing his ass off and he said "It's tacky anyway; just keep doing it until he gives up." She comes up and is trying to get through the doorway and rubs all over my back, like a cat. I was just standing there, with my hand up on the doorframe to knock the fucking streamer back down and she took my other hand and gave it a yank. Well I said 'fuck this' and left it. Chad was yelling "Oh, the shows over, Anais Nin beckons!" I didn't care. He had enough boner material with all the men down there working. Mine was dragging me away, willing I might add.

We wound up in the pantry. There were tablecloths and cushions and all this… _effluvia_ stacked up in there but she sat down on the tablecloths and pulled me down with her. I was absolutely stunned but I didn't let that stop me. I had her leggings half-way past her hips when this guy busts in and says "Hey! You two ain't getting paid to fuck! Get back to work!" She jumped up and ran, giggling, and I would have killed that mother fucker if I didn't hate so much that I'd have to see him around all the time. As it was I just disappeared and he almost shit himself. That was almost worth it_. Almost_.

So everyone was arriving and get this: It's the distributor for Mickey's Malt Liquor having this big soiree. I used to drink that shit back when I was alive! Who would have thought? I'm 17 and a beer company is having a party at my house. If I wasn't dead already I would be now.

Patrick was strutting around trying to find someone to get with, and Chad just kept drinking Mickey's, giving him the stink eye. Dad showed up. Of course! There's women and free beer, why not? Asshole. Moiré had already bagged a few workmen and now she was working her way through the waiters and waitresses. Dalia is just trying to find out if anyone works in the movies. Poor old Dalia. Nora is appalled (what else is new?), Charles is drunk, the _nurses_ are drunk (!) and Ben and Vivien are nowhere to be seen. I don't know what everyone else is up to but good. Leave me alone. I started drinking early because Violet was nowhere to be found and I was about to lose it when she came outside in this heavy sweater and a long skirt. It was cold and she could have come out dressed like a Sherpa and I wouldn't care. It was my Vi.

It has, in the long, long years since all of this fell apart, that maybe the only reason I love her so much is because she's the only other girl my age in the house. That was me trying to make the best of it or change my own mind. Other teenage girls came and went without as much as a flutter of my make-believe heart. The one that used to beat for real is mummified some place like Hollywood Forever, I guess. The real one, _my_ real heart, came with me when I woke up and left all those cops and ME's circling my truly gruesome body on the bedroom floor. And soon after the girls started moving in and my real heart didn't give a shit. Until her. And after. Still her.

She came straight out to the gazebo to me. They had fancied it up with little tea lights and put cushions on the floor. She sat down on one right in front of me and she smelled like vanilla.

VIOLET'S POV

Hey," I said softly.

"Hey," came back, just as soft. "Wanna Mickey?" He dug into a cooler on the bench beside him and produced one. I laughed and he screwed the cap off for me. "Now that's some high class brew, right there. Re-sealable cap." He flicked it off into the grass.

"Oh man," I breathed, inhaling the scent as it effervesced from the open wide mouth of the bottle. "We used to have those all the time in Boston. There are so many Irish people in Boston…" He held the bottle out but it was wet and slipping from his grip so I closed my hand around his to catch it. He was staring at me with those dark eyes; I know they're really brown but I used to think they were black like that damn rubber suit. Like his heart.

Now I know that isn't true.

I'm tired, so fucking tired of it all. It's like being on some ridiculous diet all the time. Never having anything you like when everyone else is happily slobbing away around you. Denying yourself the one thing you really want more than anything in these 10,440 square feet of house and lawns and our world. And I don't care anymore. I don't even see my mom. I've thought a lot, and it's screwed and fucked and all kinds of dark things but she wasn't there for me a most of the time. She was on tour with the symphony and decorating and then pregnant and decorating more and then she caught Dad and the bitch and she lost the thread. I wonder if she ever stopped and thought about the fact that I got cheated on too. She wasn't the only one Dad let down and damaged. I was as well.

I know what he did. I'm not delusional. But I also know why. Yeah, Chad told me. I thought: So. Still messed up. But then, if I think I was neglected, what about him? Constance drinking and hiding her imperfect offspring, all the while still trying to catch hold of that Hollywood comet. And Hugo Boss that fucked anything with a vagina. Or close to one. The next time I talked to Chad he brought it up again and I said I had been thinking about what that must have been like. And he said, "Well, Constance and Vivian…" and trailed off. Like maybe in some ways they were a lot alike. Always concerned more about their own wants and needs more than anyone else. Mom fucking determined to have a career…well then why did you have me to let babysitters raise? Mom having another baby, and when it died busting hell wide open to have another? What the hell? Guilt baby because I was grown up and didn't need her anymore? I went and told her some of what I thought and she said nothing. No-thing.

What does that say?

It says I am alone. And I hate it. But even though I should not, I love him. And I know he loves me.

So what? It's my (after) life. And I'm not the most stable character in the play. I cut myself. I smoked cigarettes and pot and dropped a tab or two of acid trying to straighten out my head. Now it sort of seems as if it was unwound and uncurled on its own.

This is the new Violet. Same as the old, just…wiser. Evolved some more? Maybe.

We kept drinking and he kept talking and I just listened because I had missed him so much; missed that voice that was soft and gentle until he was mad and it got sharp and cutting. The smile that lit up the dark. I watched his hands move as he talked and soon they were as if they were slow motion. I'd had too much beer. I kept drawing him out, though, finally winding up on his very youngest childhood, memories he had of visiting his grandma in Virginia. He said it was the only time he was ever happy, other than when he was with me.

He's had a few, too.

"What was your grandma's house like?"

"Tiny. Teen-niney." He sat up and put his hand on my shoulder, absently rubbing it with his thumb. "It's got two bedrooms and one bathroom. Vi," he leaned closer to me, "I come from poor folks on Mamma's side. It's Dad who was always rich. My dad had money and a car and Mamma was a beautiful girl back then, you ought to see her pictures. He swept her off her feet and then three kids later threw her in the trash; all over damn Moira. Jesus. What a mess that turned out to be." He dropped the cigarette butt into the Mickey bottle and I watched as it hissed. Mesmerized.

"That's really bad, Tate- what he did," was all I could think of to say. I reached up and covered the hand on my shoulder with my own.

"It was, but his bullshit showed me that you need to respect women. You respect the love they give you and you treat them right, because they will love you back so hard, and so much…" he trailed off, looking in my eyes in a way that made me melt in my core.

I looked up coyly. "Do you respect me?"

"You know I do."

"Do you respect the love that I give you?"

He wet his lips, smiling faintly. "Oh, yeah. Tons and tons." Biting his bottom lip, damnit. That's my job.

"Well, then, can I love you so hard, and so much…?" I exhaled slowly.

"God damn it, Vi, stop. Don't tease me. You're gettin' me hard out here in the middle of a party!" He glanced around. "I didn't think you had a kink for public sex!"

I was swaying a little, all that Mickey's hitting my bloodstream. "I don't care. I'll give you a blow job, right here, with you sittin' on that lawn chair and me sittin' on this cushion." I tipped forward. "I don't care."

"Jesus Christo," he said in Spanish, "cut it out!" He ran a hand through his hair. "God, I just envisioned that pretty vividly in my head. Holy shit. "

"I'm drunk, Tate," I announced.

"I can see that. I'm taking you to lie down for a while." He stood up and pulled up me against him. I giggled.

"You've still got a soft-on!" I sing-songed.

"Thank you so much for reminding me, I thought I'd misplaced it. Can you still walk? Christ!" I stumbled when he took a step. I tried to explain but he dismissed it with "Never mind, come on, around my neck."

"Where are you taking me?" I whined into his neck as we crossed the yard.

"In the house," he replied, striding along as people said things like "Uh oh!" and "Had a little too much!" as we passed.

"Where, though?" I persisted. I felt him struggling to open the door.

"Since we're at _our_ house I'm taking you to _you_r room." There was music playing and people laughing inside. Why did I always overdrink? Shit.

"Did I ruin the party?" I asked as we climbed the stairs.

"No!" he laughed. "Maybe for you. Not anyone else. You didn't," he lay me down on the bed, "give me the public blowjob. You just said it."

"Ha...ha," I chortled. The bed felt soooo gooood.

He sat on the bedside and frowned down at me in the white Christmas lights on the footboard's glow. "Not sick?" I shook my head. "Bed's not spinnin'?" No again. A palm on my forehead. "You're sweating'. Do you want to take off that sweater? Have you got a shirt on underneath it?"

"Camisole," I said, sitting up and raising my arms to facilitate the undressing. I was roasting in the heat of the house.

"Ah," he said appreciatively as he tugged the sweater over my head. "That…is very nice."

"Thank you," I sighed as I flopped back on the pillows. Suddenly I sat back up, startling him.

"Wait! Your Dad is here! He's been on Poon Patrol since this party started. What if he comes in here with some girl..?"

Tate said "Shiiiiit! I wish he would say something. You're my girlfriend, not just a meet 'n fuck like him."

I made a face. "I am?"

He sucked his lips in before he spoke. "Are you?"

I said nothing, but focused on his face. "But you met me."

"Uh huh."

"And you fucked me."

"Aw, now stop that. That's what got you kicked out of the party, remember?"

"But we're in your room…our old room." I glanced at the door. "Not the party."

He gazed down at me a few moments. "Damn it…No. I will not take advantage of this situation."

"Tate, now that's a bunch 'a bullshit shit right there!" I whined. He burst into laughter.

"You're starting' to sound like my mother! You …" his voice grew softer at the end of that sentence, and I felt his hands slide up my stomach to rest on my ribs. "I've missed this…missed you. How you sound and how you feel. You know?"

"I do," I sighed, "and me too."

"You know what I love? I love that little bump on your belly…? The one right below your belly button? God damn, that turns me on so much."

I responded by sliding the camisole up to expose it, above my low riding skirt. His hand crept back down and the palm rounded against the object of his affection. "I can't…I don't know why. It's just so fucking sexy."

"You know what I love?" I purred. "I love when you slide those long fingers down from my belly to see how wet I am."

His head dropped back. "This is pornography and you are the Devil." But he climbed onto the bed and straddled my legs. "And I love how you move when I do this…" he bent down and softly kissed the little mound of flesh below my navel. Involuntarily my hips rose against him and he smiled. "See?"

"Well? I love how when you kiss me you sort of rumble in your throat, like, mmmmm…like I taste sooo good."

"You are wicked, Violet. Wicked!"

I sat up, head swimming. "I know you want me."

His eyes were as big and dark as Oreos. "I never stop wanting you."

"So…" I wrapped my arms around him, trying to drag him down. He complied for a moment then pulled away.

"No. I'm not going to benefit from the fact you are drunk, or you're thinking things are what they seem…" he looked almost ready to cry. "I'm not that person anymore."

"Then, why?" I was confused and horny. Sue me.

"Because I crave you. Because any chance I get I want to touch you. It doesn't mean I do, but I want to. You made me better. I'm not the same because loving you changed me. You can't stay selfish and really love someone." He bumped noses with me. "You can't."

I fell back. "My God…" I said. He looked afraid.

"What? What did I say?"

"It's not bad…but…here's what I don't want you to say. I don't want you to say you're sorry about all of the shit that happened anymore. Happened means over means past tense. Say you're sorry if you spill something on me. Say you're sorry you snore when you sleep with me…"

His mouth opened and that same little caught laugh sound he made so long ago came out.

"…but no more about that. Okay?" I reached up and caught a tear he was shedding.

He just nodded.

"Now, if we aren't going to have any whoopsy-daisy- there- goes- my- underwear, then lie down here and snug with me. And maybe when I am sober tomorrow you will."

He just sat there.

"Did you die again? Come on!" I curled up and pulled at his shoulders. "Snug!"

And like the Good Boy that he is now, he curled up behind me and fit me into the shape of his body. All over me like a warm blanket. Even better than. _My_ warm blanket.

"So, think you will tomorrow?" I whispered, sleepy now.

"Of course I will. What would change that?"

"Feels like you're ready to now," I observed, squirming my behind into his crotch.

"Pay no attention to him. He's churlish and a boor. You can't take him to parties."

I laughed and fell asleep.


	6. Chapter 6

**Author's note to her lovely readers: Well, I switched up on you. First person POV's. I've been writing in it lately and it just flowed this way. Do you want me to leave it at five or go on one more? I kina feel extending would just be soft core porn but hey…I'm down with that, too. Probably would piss me off it I was reading it without a money shot! :D**

**TATES POV**

Well, there's news, and then THERE'S NEWS!

I am writing all of this down and fuck Strunk and White; I just don't want to forget anything. Style be damned.

News part: Some company rented this place for a St. Patrick's Day party. Can you believe it? Chad said that he saw them coming through, saying it looked like a castle, oh, oh! Anyway, cleaners and decorators came in and I bet he had a massive stiffy. God knows I was suffering because she was getting warmer and closer all the time. Okay, NEWS part: Last week we met on the stairs as I was going up to see Beau and she was running down to play with the little girls. I just reached out to touch her hand as she hurried by and she pushed me up against the wall and kissed me and gave me a good grope. I was just standing there with my mouth open, catching flies if you will, and she said "Remember my place for me."

Remember my place for me. What the fuck? I almost yelled that down to her after it sunk in. I had to go sit on the toilet seat in the bathroom because it was closest and I felt tottery. My PLACE for ME? Sorry about all the capitalization. But I mean, WHAT the FUCK?

~One week later, day of the party~

We almost did it!

Shit!

There were people everywhere all night working to get this lame ass party ready and who cares, she sure as hell didn't. I was fucking with this guy; every time he'd hang this streamer I knocked down the opposite side. Back and forth, back and forth. His little face was getting red. Chad was laughing his ass off and he said "It's tacky anyway; just keep doing it until he gives up." She comes up and is trying to get through the doorway and rubs all over my back, like a cat. I was just standing there, with my hand up on the doorframe to knock the fucking streamer back down and she took my other hand and gave it a yank. Well I said 'fuck this' and left it. Chad was yelling "Oh, the shows over, Anais Nin beckons!" I didn't care. He had enough boner material with all the men down there working. Mine was dragging me away, willing I might add.

We wound up in the pantry. There were tablecloths and cushions and all this… _effluvia_ stacked up in there but she sat down on the tablecloths and pulled me down with her. I was absolutely stunned but I didn't let that stop me. I had her leggings half-way past her hips when this guy busts in and says "Hey! You two ain't getting paid to fuck! Get back to work!" She jumped up and ran, giggling, and I would have killed that mother fucker if I didn't hate so much that I'd have to see him around all the time. As it was I just disappeared and he almost shit himself. That was almost worth it_. Almost_.

So everyone was arriving and get this: It's the distributor for Mickey's Malt Liquor having this big soiree. I used to drink that shit back when I was alive! Who would have thought? I'm 17 and a beer company is having a party at my house. If I wasn't dead already I would be now.

Patrick was strutting around trying to find someone to get with, and Chad just kept drinking Mickey's, giving him the stink eye. Dad showed up. Of course! There's women and free beer, why not? Asshole. Moiré had already bagged a few workmen and now she was working her way through the waiters and waitresses. Dalia is just trying to find out if anyone works in the movies. Poor old Dalia. Nora is appalled (what else is new?), Charles is drunk, the _nurses_ are drunk (!) and Ben and Vivien are nowhere to be seen. I don't know what everyone else is up to but good. Leave me alone. I started drinking early because Violet was nowhere to be found and I was about to lose it when she came outside in this heavy sweater and a long skirt. It was cold and she could have come out dressed like a Sherpa and I wouldn't care. It was my Vi.

It has, in the long, long years since all of this fell apart, that maybe the only reason I love her so much is because she's the only other girl my age in the house. That was me trying to make the best of it or change my own mind. Other teenage girls came and went without as much as a flutter of my make-believe heart. The one that used to beat for real is mummified some place like Hollywood Forever, I guess. The real one, _my_ real heart, came with me when I woke up and left all those cops and ME's circling my truly gruesome body on the bedroom floor. And soon after the girls started moving in and my real heart didn't give a shit. Until her. And after. Still her.

She came straight out to the gazebo to me. They had fancied it up with little tea lights and put cushions on the floor. She sat down on one right in front of me and she smelled like vanilla.

VIOLET'S POV

Hey," I said softly.

"Hey," came back, just as soft. "Wanna Mickey?" He dug into a cooler on the bench beside him and produced one. I laughed and he screwed the cap off for me. "Now that's some high class brew, right there. Re-sealable cap." He flicked it off into the grass.

"Oh man," I breathed, inhaling the scent as it effervesced from the open wide mouth of the bottle. "We used to have those all the time in Boston. There are so many Irish people in Boston…" He held the bottle out but it was wet and slipping from his grip so I closed my hand around his to catch it. He was staring at me with those dark eyes; I know they're really brown but I used to think they were black like that damn rubber suit. Like his heart.

Now I know that isn't true.

I'm tired, so fucking tired of it all. It's like being on some ridiculous diet all the time. Never having anything you like when everyone else is happily slobbing away around you. Denying yourself the one thing you really want more than anything in these 10,440 square feet of house and lawns and our world. And I don't care anymore. I don't even see my mom. I've thought a lot, and it's screwed and fucked and all kinds of dark things but she wasn't there for me a most of the time. She was on tour with the symphony and decorating and then pregnant and decorating more and then she caught Dad and the bitch and she lost the thread. I wonder if she ever stopped and thought about the fact that I got cheated on too. She wasn't the only one Dad let down and damaged. I was as well.

I know what he did. I'm not delusional. But I also know why. Yeah, Chad told me. I thought: So. Still messed up. But then, if I think I was neglected, what about him? Constance drinking and hiding her imperfect offspring, all the while still trying to catch hold of that Hollywood comet. And Hugo Boss that fucked anything with a vagina. Or close to one. The next time I talked to Chad he brought it up again and I said I had been thinking about what that must have been like. And he said, "Well, Constance and Vivian…" and trailed off. Like maybe in some ways they were a lot alike. Always concerned more about their own wants and needs more than anyone else. Mom fucking determined to have a career…well then why did you have me to let babysitters raise? Mom having another baby, and when it died busting hell wide open to have another? What the hell? Guilt baby because I was grown up and didn't need her anymore? I went and told her some of what I thought and she said nothing. No-thing.

What does that say?

It says I am alone. And I hate it. But even though I should not, I love him. And I know he loves me.

So what? It's my (after) life. And I'm not the most stable character in the play. I cut myself. I smoked cigarettes and pot and dropped a tab or two of acid trying to straighten out my head. Now it sort of seems as if it was unwound and uncurled on its own.

This is the new Violet. Same as the old, just…wiser. Evolved some more? Maybe.

We kept drinking and he kept talking and I just listened because I had missed him so much; missed that voice that was soft and gentle until he was mad and it got sharp and cutting. The smile that lit up the dark. I watched his hands move as he talked and soon they were as if they were slow motion. I'd had too much beer. I kept drawing him out, though, finally winding up on his very youngest childhood, memories he had of visiting his grandma in Virginia. He said it was the only time he was ever happy, other than when he was with me.

He's had a few, too.

"What was your grandma's house like?"

"Tiny. Teen-niney." He sat up and put his hand on my shoulder, absently rubbing it with his thumb. "It's got two bedrooms and one bathroom. Vi," he leaned closer to me, "I come from poor folks on Mamma's side. It's Dad who was always rich. My dad had money and a car and Mamma was a beautiful girl back then, you ought to see her pictures. He swept her off her feet and then three kids later threw her in the trash; all over damn Moira. Jesus. What a mess that turned out to be." He dropped the cigarette butt into the Mickey bottle and I watched as it hissed. Mesmerized.

"That's really bad, Tate- what he did," was all I could think of to say. I reached up and covered the hand on my shoulder with my own.

"It was, but his bullshit showed me that you need to respect women. You respect the love they give you and you treat them right, because they will love you back so hard, and so much…" he trailed off, looking in my eyes in a way that made me melt in my core.

I looked up coyly. "Do you respect me?"

"You know I do."

"Do you respect the love that I give you?"

He wet his lips, smiling faintly. "Oh, yeah. Tons and tons." Biting his bottom lip, damnit. That's my job.

"Well, then, can I love you so hard, and so much…?" I exhaled slowly.

"God damn it, Vi, stop. Don't tease me. You're gettin' me hard out here in the middle of a party!" He glanced around. "I didn't think you had a kink for public sex!"

I was swaying a little, all that Mickey's hitting my bloodstream. "I don't care. I'll give you a blow job, right here, with you sittin' on that lawn chair and me sittin' on this cushion." I tipped forward. "I don't care."

"Jesus Christo," he said in Spanish, "cut it out!" He ran a hand through his hair. "God, I just envisioned that pretty vividly in my head. Holy shit. "

"I'm drunk, Tate," I announced.

"I can see that. I'm taking you to lie down for a while." He stood up and pulled up me against him. I giggled.

"You've still got a soft-on!" I sing-songed.

"Thank you so much for reminding me, I thought I'd misplaced it. Can you still walk? Christ!" I stumbled when he took a step. I tried to explain but he dismissed it with "Never mind, come on, around my neck."

"Where are you taking me?" I whined into his neck as we crossed the yard.

"In the house," he replied, striding along as people said things like "Uh oh!" and "Had a little too much!" as we passed.

"Where, though?" I persisted. I felt him struggling to open the door.

"Since we're at _our_ house I'm taking you to _you_r room." There was music playing and people laughing inside. Why did I always overdrink? Shit.

"Did I ruin the party?" I asked as we climbed the stairs.

"No!" he laughed. "Maybe for you. Not anyone else. You didn't," he lay me down on the bed, "give me the public blowjob. You just said it."

"Ha...ha," I chortled. The bed felt soooo gooood.

He sat on the bedside and frowned down at me in the white Christmas lights on the footboard's glow. "Not sick?" I shook my head. "Bed's not spinnin'?" No again. A palm on my forehead. "You're sweating'. Do you want to take off that sweater? Have you got a shirt on underneath it?"

"Camisole," I said, sitting up and raising my arms to facilitate the undressing. I was roasting in the heat of the house.

"Ah," he said appreciatively as he tugged the sweater over my head. "That…is very nice."

"Thank you," I sighed as I flopped back on the pillows. Suddenly I sat back up, startling him.

"Wait! Your Dad is here! He's been on Poon Patrol since this party started. What if he comes in here with some girl..?"

Tate said "Shiiiiit! I wish he would say something. You're my girlfriend, not just a meet 'n fuck like him."

I made a face. "I am?"

He sucked his lips in before he spoke. "Are you?"

I said nothing, but focused on his face. "But you met me."

"Uh huh."

"And you fucked me."

"Aw, now stop that. That's what got you kicked out of the party, remember?"

"But we're in your room…our old room." I glanced at the door. "Not the party."

He gazed down at me a few moments. "Damn it…No. I will not take advantage of this situation."

"Tate, now that's a bunch 'a bullshit shit right there!" I whined. He burst into laughter.

"You're starting' to sound like my mother! You …" his voice grew softer at the end of that sentence, and I felt his hands slide up my stomach to rest on my ribs. "I've missed this…missed you. How you sound and how you feel. You know?"

"I do," I sighed, "and me too."

"You know what I love? I love that little bump on your belly…? The one right below your belly button? God damn, that turns me on so much."

I responded by sliding the camisole up to expose it, above my low riding skirt. His hand crept back down and the palm rounded against the object of his affection. "I can't…I don't know why. It's just so fucking sexy."

"You know what I love?" I purred. "I love when you slide those long fingers down from my belly to see how wet I am."

His head dropped back. "This is pornography and you are the Devil." But he climbed onto the bed and straddled my legs. "And I love how you move when I do this…" he bent down and softly kissed the little mound of flesh below my navel. Involuntarily my hips rose against him and he smiled. "See?"

"Well? I love how when you kiss me you sort of rumble in your throat, like, mmmmm…like I taste sooo good."

"You are wicked, Violet. Wicked!"

I sat up, head swimming. "I know you want me."

His eyes were as big and dark as Oreos. "I never stop wanting you."

"So…" I wrapped my arms around him, trying to drag him down. He complied for a moment then pulled away.

"No. I'm not going to benefit from the fact you are drunk, or you're thinking things are what they seem…" he looked almost ready to cry. "I'm not that person anymore."

"Then, why?" I was confused and horny. Sue me.

"Because I crave you. Because any chance I get I want to touch you. It doesn't mean I do, but I want to. You made me better. I'm not the same because loving you changed me. You can't stay selfish and really love someone." He bumped noses with me. "You can't."

I fell back. "My God…" I said. He looked afraid.

"What? What did I say?"

"It's not bad…but…here's what I don't want you to say. I don't want you to say you're sorry about all of the shit that happened anymore. Happened means over means past tense. Say you're sorry if you spill something on me. Say you're sorry you snore when you sleep with me…"

His mouth opened and that same little caught laugh sound he made so long ago came out.

"…but no more about that. Okay?" I reached up and caught a tear he was shedding.

He just nodded.

"Now, if we aren't going to have any whoopsy-daisy- there- goes- my- underwear, then lie down here and snug with me. And maybe when I am sober tomorrow you will."

He just sat there.

"Did you die again? Come on!" I curled up and pulled at his shoulders. "Snug!"

And like the Good Boy that he is now, he curled up behind me and fit me into the shape of his body. All over me like a warm blanket. Even better than. _My_ warm blanket.

"So, think you will tomorrow?" I whispered, sleepy now.

"Of course I will. What would change that?"

"Feels like you're ready to now," I observed, squirming my behind into his crotch.

"Pay no attention to him. He's churlish and a boor. You can't take him to parties."

I laughed and fell asleep.


End file.
